Carmit Altman

Macrostructure, microstructure, and mental state terms in the narratives of English–Hebrew bilingual preschool children with and without specific language impairment

Childrens bilingual status is important because the interest here is in narrative performance in both languages of bilingual children, in particular the within-subject, cross language comparisons. As Paradis (2010) has argued, there are some structures where performance differences will point to a temporary lack of opportunity for mastery, whereas other structures will be markers of underlying difficulties. We expect the discriminators to be language specific, depending on attested vulnerabilities for each of the languages involved. Narratives were examined for macrostructure (goals, attempts, and outcomes), microstructure (e.g., length, lexis, and morphosyntax), and mental state terms (MSTs). Thirty-one preschool children (TLD = 19, SLI = 12) retold stories accompanied by six pictures that were matched across content (Baby Birds/Baby Goats) and to the extent possible across languages (first language/second language) for macrostructure, microstructure, and MSTs in the framework of the Working Group on Narrative and Discourse Abilities in COST Action 0804 Language Impairment in a Multilingual Society: Linguistic Patterns and the Road to Assessment. The macrostructure results confirmed previous findings showing similar performance in both languages for children with TLD and those diagnosed with SLI. Consistent with previous findings on narrative abilities among bilingual children, microstructure analysis of verbal productivity, length of communication units, and lexical diversity distinguished children with TLD from those with SLI. An analysis of MSTs yielded more MSTs in childrens second language, in particular more mental verbs. The most prevalent MSTs used in all narratives were early acquired perceptual and motivational verbs (“see” and “want”). Overall, distinctions between narratives of children with TLD and SLI were found primarily for microstructure features, where error analysis was particularly important in uncovering possible markers, especially in second languages.

Integrated narrative analysis in multilingual aphasia: The relationship among narrative structure, grammaticality, and fluency

Background: Amid robust evidence for the efficacy of language treatment in aphasia, equivocal results have been reported for the generalisation of treatment effects to items and tasks not practised during therapy. Moreover, measuring generalisation using functional language production has proven challenging, especially in the context of multilingual aphasia. Aim: In this paper we analysed four domains—discourse structure, sentence structure, instances of linguistic dysfluencies, and lexical choice—in narratives produced following treatment to assess aphasia treatment generalisation within and across languages. Methods & Procedures: Two treatment phases were administered to a trilingual speaker with mild, chronic, non-fluent aphasia, targeting language production. Multiple baseline testing was administered prior to and following each treatment phase and included elicited narrative production in three languages: Hebrew, English, and French. Outcomes & Results: The results demonstrated treatment-related changes in the treated language as well as in the non-treated languages. Positive change was found in narrative structure and in sentence grammaticality. A trade-off pattern between grammaticality and fluency was evident, with higher proportions of grammatical sentences associated with increased instances of linguistic dysfluencies. Within-language and between-language generalisation was observed, especially following the first treatment phase which targeted morphosyntactic structures. Conclusions: We argue for the importance of an integrated analysis of connected language production in the assessment of aphasia treatment efficacy and in multilingual aphasia.

Family language policies, reported language use and proficiency in Russian – Hebrew bilingual children in Israel

The relationship between family language policy (FLP) and language choice, language use, proficiency in Russian and Hebrew, codeswitching (CS) and linguistic performance was studied in Russian-speaking immigrant parents and their Russian–Hebrew bilingual preschool children. By means of Glasers Grounded Theory, the content of sociolinguistic interviews with 65 parents was classified to form families with strict-Russian, mild-Russian and pro-bilingual language policies. Preschool children (M = 6; 0) from these families were asked to respond to questions about language use, language choice, proficiency in Russian and Hebrew and CS on 10-point graphic rating scales as well as perform three linguistic tasks: noun–verb picture naming, non-word repetition and complex syntax in sentence repetition. Findings for language use and self-rated proficiency showed the varying degrees of reported Russian language maintenance depending on the FLP applied in the home. Yet, performance on complex syntax showed better performance in Hebrew than Russian, and children reported more CS into L2/Hebrew than into their home language. These latter findings in the three FLP groups are interpreted as evidence for language shift and may be attributed to greater influence of peers and siblings rather than parents.

Quantitative and qualitative differences in the lexical knowledge of monolingual and bilingual children on the LITMUS-CLT task

ABSTRACT While bilingual children follow the same milestones of language acquisition as monolingual children do in learning the syntactic patterns of their second language (L2), their vocabulary size in L2 often lags behind compared to monolinguals. The present study explores the comprehension and production of nouns and verbs in Hebrew, by two groups of 5- to 6-year olds with typical language development: monolingual Hebrew speakers (N = 26), and Russian-Hebrew bilinguals (N = 27). Analyses not only show quantitative gaps between comprehension and production and between nouns and verbs, with a bilingual effect in both, but also a qualitative difference between monolinguals and bilinguals in their production errors: monolinguals’ errors reveal knowledge of the language rules despite temporary access difficulties, while bilinguals’ errors reflect gaps in their knowledge of Hebrew (L2). The nature of Hebrew as a Semitic language allows one to explore this qualitative difference in the semantic and morphological level.

Codeswitching and discourse markers in the narratives of a bilingual speaker with aphasia

ABSTRACT Background: Codeswitching and discourse markers are proposed as potentially compensatory means to promote fluency in bilingual people diagnosed with nonfluent aphasia. Aim: This paper examined four linguistic markers of aphasia and fluency—grammaticality, complexity, codeswitching, and discourse markers—in the narratives of a bilingual speaker, in order to assess whether and to what extent these phenomena are manifested in the two languages of a person with aphasia. Methods & Procedures: Sixteen narratives per language were collected, using a cue word procedure, from a 59-year-old Yiddish–English bilingual with diagnosed moderate nonfluent aphasia. Analyses of frequency and locus of ungrammaticality, sentence complexity, codeswitching, and discourse markers were conducted as well as motivations for codeswitching. Outcomes & Results: Findings showed more ungrammaticality in English (L2) than Yiddish (L1), relatively similar levels of complexity, and very similar use of discourse markers in both languages. Codeswitching was more prevalent in Yiddish (L1), motivated by lexical access difficulties, whereas in English (L2), codeswitching was motivated both by lexical access and cross-linguistic lexicalization differences. Conclusions: Differential use of codeswitching across the languages of a bilingual person with nonfluent aphasia shows that different strategies are used to enhance fluency and compensate for ungrammaticality in each language. Clinically, the study shows the importance of assessment in both languages, and suggests that intervention in both languages should be considered pending further investigation.

Some wheres and whys in bilingual codeswitching: Directionality, motivation and locus of codeswitching in Russian-Hebrew bilingual children:

Aims and objectives: Differences in directionality, motivations and locus of codeswitching have been reported for children’s codeswitching, but these constructs have not been subjected to experimental study in order to examine how they may interact. This study investigated these variables in bilingual preschool children’s codeswitching. Methodology: Thirty-two Russian-Hebrew bilingual children (mean age 6;3) performed two tasks: Retelling of narratives manipulated for setting/topic and listener and Conversation with a bilingual adult. Retelling conditions included a Russian story retold to a Hebrew-speaking puppet, a Hebrew story retold to a Russian speaking puppet and a Mixed language story retold to a bilingual puppet. The Conversation task involved responses to questions in Russian, Hebrew and codeswitched speech about holidays and activities at home and in preschool. Data and Analysis: All children’s speech was audio recorded and transcribed using CHILDES conventions for data transcription. Codeswitched utterances were coded for the following: Directionality (Hebrew-to-Russian/Russian-to-Hebrew); Motivation (psycholinguistic/sociopragmatic); and Locus (intra-utterance/cross-speaker). Results: Overall children produced more codeswitching from Russian to Hebrew and did so more for psycholinguistic motivations (to maintain fluency or to overcome difficulties in lexical access). Originality: High rates of codeswitching occurred in this study, ranging from 15% to 22% for Conversation and Retelling, respectively (calculated as codeswitched instances per utterance). This high rate may be attributed to the experimental nature of the tasks, which intended to elicit codeswitching in children’s speech. Significance: Drawing from Green and Wei’s processing model, findings regarding directionality and motivation are discussed in terms of connectivity and activation.

Vocabulary, Metalinguistic Awareness and Language Dominance Among Bilingual Preschool Children

Awareness of language structure has been studied in bilinguals, but there is limited research on how language dominance is related to metalinguistic awareness, and whether metalinguistic awareness predicts vocabulary size. The present study aims to explore the role of language dominance in the relation between vocabulary size in both languages of bilingual children and metalinguistic awareness in the societal language. It evaluates the impact of two metalinguistic awareness abilities, morphological and lexical awareness, on receptive and expressive vocabulary size. This is of special interest since most studies focus on the impact of exposure on vocabulary size but very few explore the impact of the interaction between metalinguistic awareness and dominance. 5–6-year-old preschool children with typical language development participated in the study: 15 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the societal language (SL) Hebrew, 21 Russian-Hebrew bilingual children dominant in the Heritage language (HL) Russian and 32 monolingual children. Dominance was determined by relative proficiency, based on standardized tests in the two languages. Tasks of morphological and lexical awareness were administered in SL-Hebrew, along with measures of receptive and expressive vocabulary size in both languages. Vocabulary size in SL-Hebrew was significantly higher for SL-dominant bilinguals (who performed like monolinguals) than for HL-dominant bilinguals, while HL-Russian vocabulary size was higher for HL-dominant bilinguals than for SL-dominant bilinguals. A hierarchical regression analyzing the relationship between vocabulary size and metalinguistic awareness showed that dominance, lexical metalinguistic awareness and the interaction between the two were predictors of both receptive and expressive vocabulary size. Morphological metalinguistic awareness was not a predictor of vocabulary size. The relationship between lexical awareness and SL-vocabulary size was limited to the HL-dominant group. HL-dominant bilinguals relied on lexical metalinguistic awareness, measured by fast mapping abilities, that is, the abilities to acquire new words, in expanding their vocabulary size, whereas SL-dominant bilinguals and monolinguals did not. This difference reflects the milestones of lexical acquisition the different groups have reached. These findings show that metalinguistic awareness should also be taken into consideration when evaluating the variables that influence vocabulary size among bilinguals though different ways in different dominance groups.

Story grammar elements and causal relations in the narratives of Russian-Hebrew bilingual children with SLI and typical language development

BACKGROUND While there is general agreement regarding poor performance of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) on microstructure measures of narrative production, findings on macrostructure are inconsistent. PURPOSE The present study analyzed narrative abilities of Russian-Hebrew bilingual preschool children with and without SLI, with a particular focus on story grammar (SG) elements and causal relations, in order to identify macrostructure features which distinguish bilingual children with SLI from those with typical development. METHOD Narratives were collected from 35 typically developing bilinguals (BiTD) and 14 bilinguals with SLI (BiSLI) in both Russian/L1 and Hebrew/L2 using a retelling procedure (LITMUS-Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives) (Gagarina, Klop, Kunnari, Tantele, Välimaa, Balčiūnienė, Bohnacker, & Walters, 2012). Each story contained three episodes, and each episode introduced a different protagonist with explicitly stated Goals (G), Attempts (A) and Outcomes (O). Causal relations assessed included Enabling, Physical, Motivational, and Psychological relations, following Trabasso & Nickels (1992). Each Goal-Attempt-Outcome (GAO) episode was examined for the use of SG elements and causal relations. RESULTS Group differences emerged for both aspects of macrostructure. For causal relations, narratives of BiSLI children contained fewer Enabling and Physical relations, and differed qualitatively from those of BiTD children. For SG elements, BiSLI children referred to fewer SG elements than BiTD children in the first episode, but performed like BiTD children in the second and the third episodes. CONCLUSIONS Story grammar elements in specific episodes along with Enabling and Physical causal relations distinguish the narratives of children with BiSLI from those with BiTD, which stresses the importance of examining wider array of macrostructure features in narratives.